Cyril N. Hinshelwood was not only a scientific thinker of the highest order but a great teacher who influenced a generation of chemists emerging from Oxford University in the decades before, during, and after World War II. His interests led him into the fields of physics, chemistry, biology, and even the philosophy of science, where he speculated on the nature of the scientific process. Hinshelwood's most notable achievement in a wide-ranging career took place in chemical kinetics, the study of the conditions under which chemical reactions occur. Specifically, he unraveled the daunting complexities of the reaction that produces water. In recognition of this work, Hinshelwood shared the 1956 Nobel Prize in chemistry with Nikolay N. Semenov, whose ideas he had used in his explanation.

An only child, Cyril Norman Hinshelwood was born on June 19, 1897, in London, England, to Norman MacMillan Hinshelwood, an accountant, and Ethel Smith Hinshelwood. The family...